Here's a little Q1SP treat to start your holiday weekend off right. Antediluvian is a Q1SP with a rusty, damp "Wind Tunnels" theme. It was originally started in 2001, but only this year did I finally pick it back up and finish it.

nice map, architecture- and gameplay-wise. lighting fit, too.
the final fight was too hard, though, (at least on skill 2) and i'm always a little (too) fuzzy about textures like cop1_4 being not properly aligned, but then again this also added to the oldschool feeling somehow...
only 2/5 secrets (how does one get to the ra?).
are there any more 'wind tunnels'-like maps out there?

Excellent fulfilment of the theme; bits of interconnection of the layout, seeing later areas through bars and whatnot, but without getting lost.

Great brushwork; the platforms jutting out around the inside of pipes and rooms were my favorite structures.

Good use of the textures, getting the most out of that runic-metal subset.

Gameplay was pretty much flawless, although I took the most damage from drowning clanking around looking for underwater secrets :P
I played on Normal and found items delivered in just the right amounts at just the right times. Monsters were challenging without swamping the map or me.

Solid map. Nothing that wowed me, but the whole thing was just solid. Solid. Everything was consistent, though I felt some of the combats were a bit uneven on hard mode. Other than that, it was pretty challenging, secrets were hard to see (I only found that not-so-hard RL secret) and ammo/health were placed appropriately. Maybe a little easy at the end, but oh well. I'd give it a 3 stars out of 3 and a half.

placement was damn perfect -- played on normal setting. Good variety in their approach or how you were suppose to take them on. Also, the escalation of difficulty; in the last half of the map, it really did feel like an uphill battle increasing in difficulty with every scenerio. A top caliber piece of mappage.

This was a lot of fun. In fact i was pleasantly surprised; the shots looked kind of average, but in practice the old-school feel was executed very smoothly. Lighting was noticeably well done, with very pretty spotlights :D

Thanks for the praise, i'm glad everyone enjoyed it. I'll check out these demos when I get home.

More responses: Antediluvian, aside from being appropriate to the watery old sewer setting, also has an H.P. Lovecraft connection.

Rust in Peace was awesome and one of my favorites from 1997. Mike Reute unfortunately became a professional coder and has pretty much given up on mapping, though he did make maps for Monolith's Sanity game.

cop1_4 is sometimes impossible to align on strange brush shapes; I relied on people being used to seeing it misaligned -- all part of the old-school charm, I hope :)

Rubicon 2: with this out of the way i will hopefully work on that next, taking breaks to work on fitzquake of course :P

i reallyreally like this map. it is so small and though so full of great stuff. just played a nightmare 100%, something that i don't do very often. maps in this style are the perfect motivation for secret hunting for me.
ant.bsp reminds me a bit to chessp1, the same "oldschool" feeling.

I enjoyed very much playing this map. The looks and the gameplay are great. I played on hard skill - many monsters, many good fights - died several times. The ending on skill 2 was little bit too hard in my opinion. On easy skill there are also enough monsters so you don't get bored but also have time to watch for the secrets (found only 2). The progression was intuitive - I always knew where to go next. But there is maybe a drawback because of this. I couldn't find the way back to the starting point after reaching the main room with the three wind tunnels. Also is there a way to get back from the exit?
Anyway, in my opinion this map is the best release in a long time. I liked it very much and also it is a map that makes me want to play it more than once.
One more: hard to find secrets seem to be a good idea in a map. I'm still curious how to get to the other 3 I didn't found, although I could see them :)

I don't really have much to say about this map beyond what has already been said.

* a solid map, which unfortunately lacks the WOW factor
* it looks and plays lot like Wind Tunnels

It looks like you gave a lot of thought to the gameplay and besides a few predictable things, it was very good throughout the entire map. I ran out of ammo once but luckily was able to dodge some mosters, run through 2 rooms and grab some shells.

The quality of brushwork was good and consistent with some areas making me look around and say "nice": (1) the part with many zombies and (2) some platform designs come to mind. Some areas could have been more polished tho, for example the vore cage. It was a good idea gameplay-wise, but it looked odd and somewhat out of place.

Nice old schoolery while maintaining good build quality. Lighting was especially tasty. It was interesting to see how a few things had changed since I last saw the map a couple years ago.

Pacing was interesting and fun and a bit different from most maps. I had some ammo trouble in a few spots, but health seemed to be dispersed more adequately. Great job, and I'm glad you finally finished it.

Oh, and like I said when I first saw it, Antediluvian is quite possibly the best name ever for a metal-themed map.

It was under a red sky, with a wooden bridge being crowded by the the ID rock texture rock3_8.
The bridge was over what looked to be blood (thus zer styled in my mind), and terminating it what was an archway, maybe wenter01.

Nice enough. Design was proper old skool Quake. I like the outdoor bit.

Gameplay was fun for the most part. I fucked up badly near the RL, ended up playing for a while with 2-8% health which was very unpleasant. Ending was quite good. Seemed to be some impossible to kill Vores.

Good verticality, gameflow and balanced action on Normal. I liked the many grates with nice shadows. Ammo/health was adequate but I could've used less armor in the beginning and more near the end. Got mauled pretty good in the big outside area.

Progression felt smooth, except that I would've liked to be able to get back after the final battle to go secret hunting. Like Ankh, I noticed that most paths led to the hub with the three wind tunnels, going back to the start proved more difficult. I finally found all five secrets, but the last two took a while ...

And as for the question of going back the start, that is a flaw in this level. Once you go up the tunnel with the silver key door, you can't return to before that point, and then when you go up the tunnel with the gold key door, you again can't backtrack.

I've just played the map, and I enjoyed it. Good ammo/armor/health balance, I've never been loose in the map, very interesting progression, very good monster placement (I was surprised 2 or 3 times by ogres' ambush..) Gameplay is very good.
Concerning architecture and design layout, it is also very interesting. This rusty design with pipes and water remind me some underearth original ID's level... The only thing I could complain is the fact that the map has not been compilated for transparent water... Well, it is easily solved by console command but I like transparent water effect.. but that's my own taste... As well, lightning effects are really good...
In anyway, it is a very good map that smell to come from a professionnal mapper..
you did good work, I had good fun: kthx for that ;)

Since you have used some teleporters for the secrets so why didn't you put a simple teleporter to enable going back from the exit room?
I have also a question about the secrets. I couldn't find the more hidden yet. Are there any hints in the map so you can find the entrance to them? Or is it just that the only hint is that you an see the secret place somewhere above you?
I found the RL secret by pure luck - just shooting a grille.

Sorry if my earlier comments were a bit blah, was tired and felt blargh. I do think it is a good map, and the problem with the gameplay was my fault, other than that it played well. Also in addition to the architecture, I like the interconnected design. That bit where you can look down on the large area was cool.

I found the first 4 in a row while progressing without backpeddling and found the 5th and last after reloading a saved game (and it didn't take that long to find.) They are good and fair but you need to look all around as you go along your merry way.

I like old skool maps that are well made. This and Ceremonial Circles (which I played not so long ago) are a total delight. Long live id! I really like copper maps and this one is well made and laid out.

I played on Hard and found the map to be good, challenging and fair but there was a spell about 75-80% through when I only had rockets as ammo - not a great situation.

Texture work was great and took me back to the Windtunnels. Limitations on texture alignment were obvious and while not at the standard of today's fine map releases does give this map a nostalgic feel.

Thanks Metlslime - it's nice to see some pickup in the SPQ1 scene with this and other nice maps that have come out after a worrisome drought.

you can�t i guess...:) is for fuhquake, zquake or ezquake ;) i just use Fitzquake for mods that dont run in fuhquake

Fuhquake Bleh

#54 posted by lodis [131.116.254.200] on 2005/09/07 04:27:33

playing sp levels in fuhquake is bleh, at least for semi-purist like me. Fuhquake is a qw-client which allows you to play single player in a qw-world. I.e. you get qw-physics which differ from regular quake physics (there are probably other differences as well).
Speedrunning wise, which is where I'm coming from, it's a no-no since you can perform tricks and do jumps not possible in regular quake.
Of course, you do whatever you like, but I think maps designed for regular quake should be played in regular quake, but hey, maybe that's just me.

qw physics have easier bunny and some other things so they are not "right" for the sp maps, I agree.

In z/fuh/ez the mouse and fps and whatnot refresh rates etc are smooth and good and there is the possibility of weapon scripts and pickup finetuning etc, something all of which is a bit different, harder or impossible to make or configure in fitzquake, so it is often easier for qw players to just run their normal qw client with the inbuilt zquake server and spprogs.dat. (Just typing deathmatch 0 and map ant etc...)
I don't know if the bunny there could be made sp-proper. Probably to at least some degree, if you can motivate the qw client guys. Of course the qw bunny option should also be kept for practice purposes on localhost. Maybe bind it to deathmatch 0/1.

well i just tried loading it in GLQuake, and it worked fine. So you'll have to be more specific about when it crashes, and what the error message is.

#63 posted by Gunter [64.24.211.36] on 2005/09/08 11:20:58

Ok, I was getting a "greater then free hunk" crash and found that I needed to give more memory to GLquake.... It's because I'm also running a big mod.... (FvF, in Quest mode, which makes the monsters a LOT harder, heh, and is designed for coop play - http://fvfpage.servequake.com - I might run this on the server sometime if I get some players to download it).

Nice map. Bits were a little unfair on skill 2 (I thought it was still customary to at least give the player something to hide behind or some place to go when fighting shamblers and vores).

It's interesting to think how many new episodes of Quake the people on this board have produced. Terra alone could have shipped with the fucking game. So could this, and so many other maps.

There's a nice idea - take a half dozen or so of the best single standalone SP maps, rebalance the monsters/items so they can be played in sequence, and make an episode out of them. Starting, of course, with one of Biff's idbase maps.

Bits were a little unfair on skill 2 (I thought it was still customary to at least give the player something to hide behind or some place to go when fighting shamblers and vores).

Regarding this, I was actually trying to introduce some new challenges for what I assume are exremely seasoned players. I think if you're playing on hard it's fair to give you a few situations that are uncomfortable.

Fighting a shambler in a room full of pillars is something most of us can do in our sleep. A shambler in a room with no cover forces you to work a little harder, but there's still the fairly well-known technique of running forward to trigger his melee attack, and backing up before it can hit you, repeat as needed. If you know how to do that, figure it's a reasonable next step to force you to deal with two shamblers in a bare room -- you do the close/far trick on shambler A, while keeping him on the line-of-sight between you and shambler B.

As for that vore, this is a little tougher, but since it's a skippable battle, i figure it's okay. The way i deal with vores when there's no cover is to get as close as possible and unload grenades as fast as possible -- this should give you at most one voreball to deal with. Another, trickier trick is to not kill the ogre, drop down onto the bridge, and then use the ogre to block the voreballs.

There's a nice idea - take a half dozen or so of the best single standalone SP maps, rebalance the monsters/items so they can be played in sequence, and make an episode out of them. Starting, of course, with one of Biff's idbase maps.

Yes, the "id replacements" episode idea is attractive to me. If we can get a collection of levels that have consistent build quality and are fairly reminiscent of one of the original episodes, it would be pretty cool. With the GPL-map-file trend increasing, it wouldn't be too hard for one person to actually collect the appropriate maps and remix them into a gameplay-tuned episode.

This is probably one of those projects that people talk about but never happens.

As far as I can tell, there aren't too many shortcuts to be had from this level. The main speedups to be had are by getting good exits from the various wind tunnels. I managed a 3:19, but someone else managed a 3:11 and I don't think I can beat it. I don't even think that it's possible in below 3 minutes.

that 2:14 demo is pretty nice. The only other shortcut I can think of at the moment is a grenade jump off of a fiend to land up on the wall that encloses the shambler. This way you can just kill the shambler without fighting the fiends.

played this yesternight. Hadn't played quake in a long while and my settings were screwed and I played with skill 2 - was a bit too hard for me, always having to try tough spots multiple times because I was so low on health. Found 2 secrets.

Some parts were very good and some were good. The secrets were nicely made, with lighting giving hints etc..

I disliked the vore in the cage. Why does everybody place vores after a dogleg corridor so the only possible way is to WANK THE CORNER 20 TIMES to kill them. Come out, shoot, go back, wait for ball to explode on wall, repeat procedure I've mentioned this before a hundred times. Please listen.

The two vores in the three wind tunnel hubroom were ok, one could run around the room forever and gather a huge mass of balls behind you and then make them hit the post between the vores and give some splash damage.

Zombies and wizards were tough sometimes when you had to use explosives and avoid splash damage... The wind tunnels that threw the player amidst enemies a few times were kinda nice, the hectic running around and killing everyone to survive -feeling.

Firstly that 2:14 is well shoddy, WTF missing out the obvious shortcut at the end ;P

In fact it's bollox really. Why is a double GJ needed when surely the skilled can curve out of the wind tunnel straight into the GK pit? And there's a couple more shortcuts - in the room with the water lifts, must be a possible way to use the angled tunnels to jump to the upper level. And in the big room with the GK tunnel, could toss a grenade down as falling to GJ straight from lower to upper switch....

Replayed this recently and enjoyed it a lot more. I do think the combat at the outdoor bit and just before is a bit unbalanced, should have some more health before that. Other than that it was more fun.

Also, WTF was I doing with secrets before, they were piss! Got 4/5 this time, and noclipped to find the MH, and I nearly got that one anyway through slope-jumping.

Liked it a lot. The interconnectivity (is that a word?), architecture, combat balance etc. And the lighting was spectacular in some places. Thanks.

Nice

#84 posted by [Kona] [203.173.141.109] on 2005/10/06 00:00:49

ooooh, old skool and wind tunnels, and solid metlslime design. good work man. it wasn't that difficult, but it did have some really fun/tough spots. the ending was a bit easy, but a very nice level. after i exited and got dropped back into the level again with all my leftover ammo, i thought what the fuck, i'll just sprint through it all again (i rarely play a level consecutively). very fun.

I really enjoyed watching spirits video, especially seeing the map for the first time! I just wish more people would do video's like this so everyone can enjoy Q1 goodness. The style and architecture of the map was amazing, I loved the whole X style with support beams and vertical shafts everywhere. Brilliant work metlslime. :)

Just counted, Antediluvian has 6 drop-downs and 5 wind tunnels. Total: 11! And almost all of them drop you into a place with immediately-alerted monsters. Does this make it a masterpiece or the worst map of all time?

Its funny how maps are a product of their time, of when they are created. There is no denying this is one hard map (especially the final room) and sits well within the 2000-2008 era of when custom maps were designed for veteran players only.

The map has the Id wind tunnel vibe done perfectly, with an endless sea of brown riveted metal and copious amounts of pipes growing in all directions. There are plenty of visual moments to enjoy, with large cross beam tunnels to strange metal cages and oppressive metal grates hinting at other places to explore.

The start of the level with the dual door ogre ambush was awesome and the start room paying homage to the original wind tunnel layout with locked pipes and water sections below to explore was perfect. At first I thought there was going to be a choice of where to go, two doors two ogres, but sadly the level turned to a linear path of various metal pipes connected via wind and water.

On several occasions I nearly drowned trying to figure out where to go. There are two sections where there is a grate and large metal plate in the ceiling and they are infact doors! At first I assumed they were just locked detail and spent ages just swimming around wondering where to go. With the large amounts of water and not obvious exits I felt like I was fighting monsters and the environment at the same time.

All of the large rooms started with the player being dropped into a hostile environment and being shot at from all directions with no chance of retreat. I know this is the original design of the Wind Tunnels but I thought it could have been different with some rooms allowing the player to plan their attack instead.

I especially like how the level wrapped around on itself, it is a beautiful design with plenty of grates looking into other areas and rooms being revisited with cool machinery opening up access to upper areas.

There were a couple of fights in the water and plenty of moments trying to get out of the water while being attacked. This is certainly my least favourite part of quake gameplay, the hassle of exiting water while trying to work out where the enemies are, it was often easier just to stay on the water surface and shoot the enemies.

I played the map on normal/hard skill level and the monster changes are subtle. There is the usual upgrade paths and quantity increases and I thought the placement of ogres was awesome with so much odd geometry angles to play with, the grenade mayhem was perfect. Unfortunately I spent so much time running around like a headless chicken I did not have much time to setup much infighting. The steep learning curve of each encounter coupled with a hostile environment never left me satisfied with the outcome.

The secrets were hit and miss with some being extremely cool (MH platform) and others being an odd mixture of visual language (RA wall switch). I thought the Quad was strange because I had to backtrack to use it and was expecting to drop down through the grate floor with an alternative route. The first secret is certainly the one which made me smile the most because it was simple but yet so effective.

Overall an architecturally gorgeous map with the classic Wind Tunnel visual / gameplay vibe, plenty of extremely steep learning curve encounters and a very hard fight to finish. A map I think was driven by the needs and desires of the community at the time and as the title suggests is a reflection of the past.

It's always interesting to get more of an outsider perspective. My opinion of this map is that it was a successful execution of my goals at the time, but your feedback helps shed light on the idea that even perfect execution relies on having the right goals. And those goals should be reexamined and improved over time.

To some extent the shortcomings you identified flowed from these goals

* many forced combat encounters from exiting wind tunnels
* extensive underwater sections with non-obvious exits
* easy skill setting maybe not easy enough
* also easy skill setting doesn't make it any easier to traverse underwater (a biosuit in each area would have been a good easy-only addition)
* lack of route choices
* lack of opportunities to observe before attacking

Also the quad was probably the wrong item to put in that secret since it's not convenient to get to the next combat area -- you can make good use of it but you really have to know where you go and run there.

it's true, you really have to plan it so that after getting the quad, the player is quickly funneled into the next combat area, since as you say they will probably not discover the secret before clearing out the area that contains the secret.

I can't think of any levels that have done it really well offhand, but there are probable some.

I'd argue that you're adding gameplay to the level, which is intrinsically more valuable than ammo collection. And nothing stops you from filling the secret with ammo as well.

Chaining power ups was great in ep4. It's rare that a mapper uses it nowadays though, think I'll give it a try. The nice thing of them being in the open was they changed the tactical approach to the level greatly depending on when the player grabbed them, but didn't really punish the player if wasted.

If you think of a secret as something to give you a leg up in the level/game, it's odd. If you think of a secret as hidden content, though, it does make perfect sense. Secrets usually aren't, although that's not to say they can't be. The exception is when they're secret levels. A hidden battle with the quad becomes almost a miniature secret level that way, I guess.

Could you make a secret area, then, with no items in it? A back door that lets you ambush the monsters waiting in an ambush closet? Or nothing more than a nice vista?

In my coag map, there's a secret that opens up routes and increases the level's connectivity for easier maneuverablility and less pressure in a time-limit gameplay event later on. I thought it was a good idea, although unfortunately it's way too difficult to find.

Most of ITS could be considered as such, if you try playing both with and without the amulet.

My favourite secrets are the large complex ones which just give more gameplay or something cool to look at, rather than just a bonus.

Whenever I find myself adding a lazy secret like that I always try to remove it completely or replace it with something that has a greater pact on how the level is played, or just makes the player think "ha, cool!"

and e1m2 as well have good quad placement. In e1m1 either way you find it, you are just in front of the spiral with monsters on the platforms and at the bottoms. In e1m2, it can be wasted if you find the silver door first and then the quad, but if you get the key first and pick up the quad, it gives a nice power trip as you blast through the ogres and the introduction of the fiend (which may serve to make you underestimate the health of the fiends later in the game). So you don't need to go full Sandy, sometimes full Romero works.

Quad

#136 posted by Orbs [178.85.9.153] on 2014/03/14 14:53:55

what you could do is make it a double secret, first one lets you find a quad, wich seems to be o typical quad like described above: rendered useless because you already killed everything in th eroom where you found it and next combat is not close enough. 2nd secret opens up a shortcut to the next combat

Gloom Keep had such expansive and interconnected secrets since it was built to double as a deathmatch map. All those extra between-the-walls spaces that lead to teleporters across the map just become part of the flow of the level. That's one of the reasons it made such a great base for an ITS level.

#138 posted by scar3crow [131.107.0.72] on 2014/03/14 23:32:56

I get mixed up on the map authors sometimes, but yeah my favorite sp maps are the ones that also work well for dm, they just have some button and key gates in them. The connectivity just feels right.